AUTHOR OF THE WILL, OR TWENTY-ONE YEARS," ETC.

Old friends!-I think upon them in passion's stirring hour, When thoughts are crowding round me with all their strength and power;

When memory brings before me each treasured joy and woe, And all the fond delusions the 'blithsome heart must know.

Old friends!-I think upon them when the balmy summer

breeze

Sweeps lightly o'er the roses, and sighs among the leaves;
When melody and song, and bright visions fill the air
As if the spirits of the brave had found a heaven there.

Old friends!-I think upon them when streams are murmuring by,

And th' witching spells of beauty throws a charm o'er earth and sky;

When the jocund sound of gladness falls sweetly on the ear. And joyous steps of young and old bid sorrow disappear.

Old friends!-I think upon them when all things 'gin to fade,

'When dewy flowers are drooping-and silent is the shade; When rest is on the earth, and creation seems to say, Oh man behold-thy chequered life is but a summer's day. Old friends!-I think upon them when the young moon sheds her light

So faintly that her beams break not the shadows of the night; When the stars are gazing on us from their blue seats above, And the celestial harmony announces-God is love.

Old friends!-I think upon them 'midst the changeful hue of things,

Where the rays of fading glory no cheering prospect brings; When the storm is on the ocean, and the whirlwind on the shore,

And the fearful strife of elements stir up the torrent's roar.

OLD FRIENDS.

Old friends!-I think upon them when the midnight hour doth come,

When thoughts and feelings mingling, in fantastic numbers

run;

When darkness and sepulchral woe sit brooding on the air, And the shapes of death around us call forth reflection's pray'r.

Old friends!-I think upon them when th' shades of the lov'd dead,

In blissfulness and beauty seem to hover near my bed;
When my creative fancy in its wanderings seem to see
Their sunny brows, their eyes of light, their immortality.

Old friends!-I think upon them when the dawn begins to rise,

And Sol, in his proud chariot, speeds up the eastern skies; When mountain, wood, and water, too, can boast a busy throng,

And nature, roused from sleep, embraces every child of song.

But ah, old friends must lose in death those charms that hearts subdue,

Till the blest Son of Righteousness their graces shall renew; For then the living and the dead a change divine shall know, The only thing that's worth our cares, or worth a thought below.

TO AN ABSENT LADY.

How well I remember a lone hour of sadness,
And long will this bosom that sadness retain ;

It was parting from thee; and the thought had been madness,
Had I not fondly hoped I might see thee again.
Those doom'd to the rack on this fond hope relying,
Can smile on the torments inflicted in vain ;
Can part from the friends who around me are sighing,
And hope they may meet them in heaven again.
Let that be my hope when from this world departing,
'Twill soothe my last moments and lull every pain;
But as this is the world we're allow'd to make love in,
I would much rather meet thee in this world again.

THE POOR MAN'S WIFE;

OR, WEDDED LIFE IN THE LOWER RANKS.

BY MISS M. LEATHES BEEVOR.

"Of all the evils of poverty, its idleness and, too often, desperate wickedness, are not to be accounted the least."

Wretched, squalid, famished, ragged, dirty, often diseased, and always desperately degraded, there is, perhaps, scarcely to be met with under the sun, a creature so truly miserable, and entirely pitiable, as she, who bears the unenviable appellation, and the intolerable burthen of being the Poor's Man's Wife! The poor MAN? Alas; No!-the ruffian,-the savage-the heathen-the BRUTE; ay, the BRUTE; and in support of the justice of our term, we fearlessly appeal to the million police reports of our thousand newspapers. Indeed, when we gaze on the hideous picture of the male portion of the uneducated classes of any civilized country, as daily exhibited by its public journals, we cannot fail to be lost in horror and astonishment, at the monstrous phenomena of fiendish depravity thus presented to our consideration, and shudderingly to ask ourselves, is this actually human nature? unsophisticated, or, in other words, uninstructed human nature? Gracious Heaven! what a spectacle!! But, that females should be found ready to consort with, to become the wives of such men, is, to the speculative observer, a still more astonishing phenomenon! Let us not be misunderstood: we do not speak of the honest, industrious, sober, moral, and religious poor man, whose bread, if laboriously earned, is eaten in peace and shared, though, perhaps, with sighs at its scantiness, with his family; he seldom figures in police reports, except misfortune, not crime, brings him before a magistrate; no-we speak of the reckless ruffian, whose unhallowed deeds harrow the spirits of those who peruse them; and, of him, one picture, unhappily, represents a species.

He marries early, very early, in life, upon NOTHING; an imprudence seldom committed by young men (and women) in the superior and respectable classes of society; one being obliged to wait, ere he enters the nuptial state, until com

fortably settled in a secure business: another, till he gets a living; a third, until promotion in army or navy, allows him to think of maintaining a wife and family, &c. &c. &c. in short, few, save the thoughtless and improvident pauper, dream of plunging themselves into certain wretchedness at the outset of life, by an imprudent marriage; few, but have greater judgment and self-command. However, tell the poor man this, and advise him to follow the example of his superiors and not marry, until he has something to marry upon, and you are met by a half curse for your pains, and a wish"that you'd not interfere with the liberty of the poor man, whose only confort is his wife."-His wife a comfort forsooth!-Alas! alas!-after the novelty of possessing such a companion is over, she is to him only an incumbrance, for whom, henceforth, such treatment as he gives poor harmless baudrons is sufficiently good, viz. harsh words, blows, kicks, and starvation! He cannot support her; she, probably, is barely able to support herself; certainly not him; certainly, not the miserable offspring of such a union; in fact, every infant brings with it, an accession of care, trouble, penury, and wretchedness; but whilst the poor mother sighs and weeps, with all a mother's yearning, over her miserable babes, the brute-husband, the ruffian-father, curses both her and them. He is generally from home all day and more than half the night; since he continues in existence, food he must by some means obtain, though how, and where, his wife cannot guess, and dare not presume to ask; however, she sees and tastes none of it. Indeed the most fashionable couple in the haut-ton cannot live more separate from, and independent of, each other, than does the poor man's wife and her husband; but bitterness, weariness, anguish, and tears, are her daily wedded portion, and despair aggravates her misery, for towards what quarter can she look in hope? Go to her wretched hut, or rather, if she resides in a town, her miserable tenement of one, or, at most, a couple of rooms; converse awhile with her, and you will find her fluent lips conversant with the names of her Creator and Saviour, and she will also talk of heaven; but this is a profanation, a mere mockery of sacred things; she being, unhappily, utterly ignorant of the principles and spirit of true religion: she, poor creature, imagines that of Paradise she is secure, because her earthly

lot is a purgatory! and, with professions on her lips, of trust in Providence, feels, in the bitterness of her heart, far more inclined "to curse God and die."

In truth, what ground has she for trust, who having married a totally irreligious man, is unavoidably engaged by his conduct, in a course of life utterly incompatible, with the fundamental precepts of Christianity? In constant discord, illfeeling, envy, and malice, at the prosperity of the more fortunate, or the more prudent, in murmuring, and discontent, &c. No! the wretched wife of this kind of poor man, feels herself little less an outcast and reprobate than himself, but to obtain relief from the affluent, refined, and virtuous, she dissimulates, calls in hypocrisy to aid, and ten to one over-acting her part, disgusts, by what is instantly discerned, in its exaggeration, to be not the result of natural feeling, and is therefore pronounced-cant. But many causes may operate to exacerbate her already deeply wounded spirit: some of her neighbours, not more deserving than herself, nay, even less so, may be in better circumstances; some may, to her certain knowledge, pursue methods of providing for themselves and families, from which her less polluted heart may, shuddering, recoil; and yet escape undetected and preserve fair characters to the world her husband may obtain work and lose it again, by bad conduct; or on account of his indifferent reputation, it may be equally refused to him and to herself: perhaps, however, both are so fortunate as to procure an engagement of some kind, which might partially ameliorate their condition, were its profits prudently applied; but no! "a short life and a merry one," is the maxim of the unfortunate man, whose habits of intoxication are not now to be shaken off; and who if he has, at times, bartered portions of his scanty wardrobe for liquor, and expended the money on ardent spirits, which ought to have furnished himself at least, if insufficient for his family, with a wholesome meal, is now little likely to apply the produce of his labor to a better purpose.

From the Saturday to the Monday night, then, he revels in swinish enjoyment, his wife seeing little or nothing of him, happily for her, since, in this state his instinctive return home, like a beast to his lair, is generally pregnant with terror and mischief, to the whole family: and thus, his wages being -spent, a sort of animal instinct, impels him to go forth, after